


Endgame

by thisisthemorning



Series: Endgame [1]
Category: Tomb Raider (Video Game)
Genre: Depictions of injury, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Canonical Character Death, Non-Chronological
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-12
Updated: 2014-12-12
Packaged: 2018-03-01 05:41:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2761721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisisthemorning/pseuds/thisisthemorning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Sam, it's always been Lara.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Endgame

**Author's Note:**

  * For [radiophile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/radiophile/gifts).



_After_

Lights in her eyes. The smell of the sea…. The smell of dead things. (People? No… she doesn’t want to think that.) Plants catching in her hair, a fly on her face. She tries to brush it off but the bouncing movement downwards makes her hand fall away… wait! Someone has her! She tries to struggle, cries out, but it comes out as a croak, and a voice tells her to hold on.

A voice.

Lara.

\---

The next thing Sam knows, they are in a boat. She’s not quite sure what just happened, or how she made it out of there alive, but she’s pretty sure Lara had something to do with it. Her flashes of memory (which she’d rather ignore right now, to be honest, because none of it seems like she’d want to relive it) make her think that Lara was an element, a force of nature, something more or different or _other_ to the Lara she knows.

Lara…

“Lara,” she croaks out, finally able to make her throat make a sound. She opens her eyes as she says it, coughs, tries to sit up. Hands wrap around her shoulders, help her up a little, push a bottle in her face.

“You need to drink something,” and Sam has never been more relieved to hear Lara’s voice. She drinks, thirstily, only now realizing that she has no idea how long it’s been since she last had water. Or food. She coughs again when she realizes that she has no idea how long she was out for, either, so her perception of time is probably completely off, anyway… and in any case, how are they now all _on a boat?_

She pushes the water away, feeling a little more human, and looks around. Boat, check. Ocean, check. Lara, check. Reyes, check, Jonah, check… no one else. And no island. 

“We made it out?” she asks, half question, half wonderment that it actually worked. “I mean…. No storms… Himiko didn’t stop us?” That question would have felt stupid just a few days ago. Now, not so much.

Lara sits down next to her. “We made it out… Himiko’s gone,” she says, sounding almost as disbelieving as Sam, although there’s something else there, too… something different. Lara _has_ changed. The island changed her, and she fought and saved Sam’s life, and something about that makes Sam feel terrible (for taking them all there in the first place, just on some crazy family story, and who could have guessed that it would all turn out to be more true than she ever would have imagined?). And something about it makes Sam feel like her heart wants to rise out of her chest and explode.

She turns to Lara, taking in her friend’s bloodstained clothing and scratched and sunburnt face, and knows she has to say something. “Lara, I…”

She’s cut off by Reyes’ triumphant shout. “A ship! We gotta ship, straight ahead! Woohoo!”

Jonah is grinning, Lara is standing up to wave her arms, and the moment when Sam could have told her any of the things that she’s feeling right now is gone before it started.

\---

_Then_

Mathias has left her alone, for now, and somewhere else she can hear the sounds of the monstrous Oni. She knows it won’t be for long – he keeps talking about a ritual, about using her body, and she doesn’t even want to think about it but she’s pretty sure she knows what he has in mind.

If she could kick herself, she would be doing that round about now. Why did she ever suggest this trip to Lara in the first place? Oh, yeah, great idea, take her awesome, sweet, beautiful friend into the adventure of a life time, get her family to pay all the bills, bring along a camera or two, it’ll be fun! Learn some family history, see a tropical island or two! “Great idea, Nishimura,” she says sarcastically. “Oh great, now I’m talking to myself. Maybe I really do take after my crazy ancestor.” 

And now Lara is being… well, amazing, really. Sam knows that Lara’s Dad was pretty incredible, but she never really thought, despite knowing Lara for so long, that her best friend would be able to do things like this. Sam can’t help but smile, thinking about it.

The sound of footsteps sends her heartbeat through the roof and makes her feel like she’s about to lose the lunch she didn’t eat all over her shoes. Lara is still on her mind, though – all she can do is hope that Lara will get her out of this. And not get herself killed – or worse – in the process.

Mathias steps through the door and Sam stares at him defiantly. She will get out of here. 

\---

_After_

It feels strange to be on a ship again, even stranger to be completely alone, without worrying that someone will try to kill her or tie her up or whatever else at any moment. It feels strange not to have a video camera, either – because she’s always recorded everything that’s interesting or weird or exciting that’s happened to her, for years now, and not to have a camera says that things aren’t back to normal… not just yet.

Not that she’s sure things ever will be. The look on Lara’s face on the tugboat… Sam only saw bits of what Lara had to do on that island, but she knows it wasn’t pretty. What if her stupid obsession broke her friend for good?

Sam climbs stiffly out of the bunkbed in her cabin, and tries to stretch out her aches and pains. To be honest, her whole body is just one big, throbbing mess right now, but its nothing some sleep and a decent massage therapist won’t be able to fix, once they get back to civilization. Right now, she has to find Lara. Somehow, she knows that if she waits to talk to her until they get off the ship, nothing will ever stay the same – or everything will, whichever is worse. She still can’t work out whether she feels guilty or terrified or something else utterly unidentifiable, but she opens the cabin door anyway and heads out on deck.

\---

Lara is talking to… some older guy, and Sam waits for them to finish before she approaches. But as the man walks away, Lara immediately starts to tend to her wounds, and Sam feels a flush of guilt that she hadn’t thought about Lara’s injuries before. She saw the blood on her clothing, after all – what was she thinking?

She walks across to Lara, quickly, and puts a hand on her shoulder. “Need some help?” she asks quietly, as Lara winces as she tries to twist around to the wound on her back. 

“Thanks,” Lara replies, and Sam gets to work. The wound is partially healed, but it needs cleaning, and Lara winces under her touch as Sam swabs it with disinfectant. 

“I’m sorry,” Sam says softly, and she hopes Lara understands that she means more than just this temporary pain.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lara says, an automatic response, and Sam can’t think of anything else to say, just now, so she concentrates on the first aid. Lara’s pretty stoic but every little noise she makes as Sam prods at her wounds sends a stabbing feeling through Sam’s middle. As she finishes up and applies clean dressings, she tries to think of something to say, but all her witty comments end in dead people and she can’t bring herself to say them. Instead, she sits down next to Lara, legs drawn up against her chest and her chin resting on her arms. Lara is cross-legged, staring across the boat to the horizon.

“I’m not going home,” Lara says suddenly, her voice barely a murmur. “Not yet. I think I have more to do.”

Sam looks at Lara, and before she can think of what to say, a memory hits her.

\---

_Before_

They’re both drunk – totally trashed, actually – and Lara is clinging to her arm, barely able to walk straight, and laughing like she’ll never stop.

“Did you see that guy’s face when I said it?” Lara splutters, wobbling towards the stairwell of their hostel and staggering sideways into a wall.

“ _Shhhh_ ,” Sam whispers dramatically. “Everyone’s _sleeping_!”

“Oh, shh you!” Lara laughs, making a melodramatic pout. “We’re free! We can do whatever we want!”

“The Graduates,” Sam says, faking a film announcer voice, and they both double over in giggles. Lara resumes her wobbling route to the stairs, trips on the linoleum, and falls in a heap.

“Oh my God! Lara! Are you OK!” Sam shrieks.

Lara sits up slowly. “’m good,” she says, grinning at Sam. “C’mon.”

Sam pulls her friend up, looks down, and realizes that Lara’s shoe is covered in blood. “You’re bleeding!”

Somehow, they make it upstairs, and Sam searches their room for something she can use as a bandage. It seems like they left their travel first aid kit at the hostel in Rome… or maybe the one in Florence… anyway, it’s definitely not here. She grabs something that seems to make sense (at least she’s sure she watched some kind of survival documentary that mentioned it), patches Lara up, and they both pass out into their sleeping bags.

\---

The next morning, when Sam manages to force her eyes open against the pounding in her head, the first thing she sees is something giant, and white, attached to Lara’s ankle. “Wha…” she starts to say, but Lara gets there first.

“Did you stick a _maxi pad_ to me last night?” Lara says, sounding halfway between amusement and horror.

Sam closes her eyes again. “Oh God…. I need water. And to never drink again.”

Lara makes a menacing sound. “ _Sam!_ ”

Sam opens one eye. “What? You were bleeding. We had no band aids. And I’m pretty sure that TV guy said that maxi pads work.”

“TV guy?” Lara says, skeptically. Then she lets out a laugh, and flops back on the bed. “Whatever. I can’t believe you did that! And I can’t believe how much my head hurts. Let’s never do that again. Ever.”

Sam throws a bottle of water at her. “What, you want to go home now?”

Lara props herself up on one elbow and looks at Sam. “No way. I’m not going home. Not yet.”

Sam grins at her. Lara’s returning smile makes her insides do strange flip-flops.

\---

_After_

She’s half awake, and she can hear the waves and the thrumming of a boat engine, but she can’t bring herself to move, or open her eyes, or make a sound at all. Next to her, beneath her, she can feel the warmth of a body; a hand is holding hers. 

She would know that hand anywhere.

Lara.

\---

_Endgame_

“I’m not going home,” the Lara next to her, and the Lara in her memory say in unison. Suddenly, Sam knows all the answers.

“OK,” she says, simply. “I’m coming too.”

Lara looks at her, and she can see the tension drain from her friend’s face, replaced by a look that is half relief, half something else entirely.

Sam finds Lara’s hand, next to hers, and takes it in her own.

“I’m coming too,” she repeats. 

Lara smiles, and Sam knows that this? This was just a beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for such a great prompt! I really enjoyed writing this story and getting inside Sam's head. Happy Yuletide! :D


End file.
